


A Toxic Allure

by frozenCinders



Category: Bx: Execute (OFF Fangame)
Genre: Brief description of animal death, CSRverse, Gen, although it's based completely on headcanons, character studyish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:15:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25889446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozenCinders/pseuds/frozenCinders
Summary: It only took thirty years for Lenny to become enraptured by poisonous frogs.
Kudos: 5





	A Toxic Allure

It only took thirty years for Lenny to become enraptured by poisonous frogs. He'd noticed a lovely, brightly colored little creature in a forest and stared in open admiration of it, until it had disappeared into the mouth of a striking snake. The poor, drab thing almost instantaneously convulsed and the frog struggled out from between its jaws before leaping right past Lenny. He stood there and watched the snake suffer and die, and he knew he was in love.

He didn't manage to find the same one, but he'd scooped up two other brightly colored frogs while he was there and took them to his, at the time, rather pathetic laboratory. Have mercy, he was just starting out. Under his care, the frogs' poison quickly became less potent until they stopped producing it completely, and Lenny struggled to understand why. He entered a frustrating loop of capturing poisonous frogs, keeping them to study, and then releasing them once they'd lost their touch.

After a few rounds of this, he began tagging the ones he released back into the wild-- just with a little piece of plastic tied to an arm with string. The first time he rediscovered the same frog, he took it home again just to see, and its poison was indeed as good as new. Figuring it must have been related to their environment, Lenny set up a semi-permanent station for himself and alternated between the sterile white of his lab and the greens and browns of the forest. His main source of joy at that time was the delightful splashes of color he was so enamored by-- the visual promise of something different, something dangerous.

His studies of poisonous frogs are long over, but he still holds some affection for them. It goes without saying that he has outlived many a pet, but even now, he still sometimes catches himself a dart frog and goes through the painstaking process of creating an almost perfect replica of its intended environment right down to the ants it hunts, just to keep it as deadly as it is beautiful.

It's difficult to put into words exactly why they fascinate him so. It could be, he supposes, the natural instinct that the frogs inspire, the warning to stay away or suffer severe consequences. Lenny, immune not to pain but very much so to death, frequently goes directly against what would be considered normal instincts for any other animal. He would walk right into a lion's mouth simply because a normally functioning brain would tell him not to. Therefore, the blaring warning signals do nothing to deter Lenny from handling the frogs, finding the tingles running along his skin almost pleasant.

Though he much prefers to read, he's printed many an informative book on poisonous frogs for himself. He's considered distributing them publicly, but always manages to find some excuse to put it off. For now, his studies sit tight in his personal library, the rest of the world figuring it out just fine without his assistance. That's another excuse he has, that the information is already out there anyway. Maybe if he attached photographs and made it kid friendly...

Actually, there's an idea. Not the kids' book, that's silly, but Lenny likes the thought of... oh, what's the word...

Scrapbooking! That's it. He used to do something like it with pressed flowers and leaves. Maybe he can reuse one of the old scrapbooks to place photos of the frogs he's kept over the years inside of. The majority of the pages were woefully blank, after all, as Lenny had no good memories or particular attachments to place inside. But this is something. Filled pages are satisfying.

It takes an entire day to dig out just one of his old scrapbooks, and he spends the remainder of the week intermittently picking out photos from his various collections, having spanned several mediums and storage spaces. He knows he has a thumb drive somewhere of the pretty red and white ones, but lord only knows where it's gone off to.

Printing and laminating some of the images is easy. Developing some others is more difficult. Either way, Lenny ends up with somewhere around a hundred physical images of his frogs, and he doesn't stop to think for even a second that he's gone overboard.

He'd thought ahead and sized most of the pictures down so that they could fit neatly next to his autumn leaves frozen in season and his flowers that used to be so much brighter in color. The only problem arises when he actually opens the scrapbook. He'd refrained from doing so before so as not to disturb the contents, but now that it's open, the dried plants reveal that they could never be made fully immune to time, crumbling almost unrecognizable down the pages and onto the floor of Lenny's lab, causing an ever growing pile of the joy he'd once felt.

He takes both sides of the cover in his hands and holds the book open, letting the rest of his past trickle down. He'll only be replacing the dead plants with more of his past, funnily enough, his studies long having reached a plateau. He steps gingerly over the pile and makes a half-hearted mental note to sweep it up later. The laminated frogs on his desk take priority at the moment.

Some of the pages contain vague imprints and residual plant matter and Lenny leaves them as they are, gingerly gluing the downsized images around the imprints in case he wants to add more later. He runs out of pages before he runs out of pictures, and he holds the last handful in one hand, a thin stack between his thumb and index finger. He consigns them to a disorganized drawer and closes it, knowing it won't be opened again except to be filled with more junk.

Looking through the scrapbook brings him some satisfaction. It is neatly arranged, and his photography work has only gotten better over the years, despite his hands becoming less steady even before his natural lifespan would have been up.

It's good to find happiness in the little things.


End file.
